Award-winning Author and Expert on China's Middle Class

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View from the Top

At GSB monthly speaker serial, the Silicon Valley legend John Doerr of KPCB gave a talk about View from the Top. People asked “from the top of what?” He joked: obviously from the top of Sand Hill Road. I have heard John Doerr talk before, it’s always interesting to hear him again. John started by saying what makes a great venture – he emphased on the “greatness.” Here is his matrix:

A+ leadership and passionate founders

Committment to technology excellence

Large, rapidly growing and unserved markets

Team of talents

As a visionary who funded Netscape, Yahoo, Google, and many other great companies in the Silicon Valley, people naturally asked what he sees as the industrial and technology trends. Here is what on his list:

Wi-Fi, wireless, handweb

Entreprise secuirtya nd search

Consumer content, services and search

Open source

Energy innovations

Evidence-based EMR

Personalized medicine

Social entrepreneurship

I am particularly impressed that John Doerr, as a traditional venture capitalist, gave special attention to social entrepreneurship. The room was quiet when he talked about problem of global poverty and what we can do to solve the problem. I hope his talk inspired more young people devoting their lives to social entrepreneurship.

In the end, John Doerr recommended a list of books to read: 1) Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure; 2) The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living; 3) Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry; 4) Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration.